<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<p>Preferential land tax programs are used over 50 years and are mainly connected with nature protection and environmental goals. Nowadays, they are also considered as a way how to promote and support forest ecosystem services that arise from exempted forest land. In Slovak Republic national forest land tax reduction scheme exists for special purpose and protection forests, as well for other forests with special importance. The goal of the paper was to develop a multidimensional evaluation of this economic instrument for ecosystem service support in Slovakia. We evaluated how the forest land tax reduction fits into the payments for ecosystem services theory, which services are supported and what is the potential and implementation effectiveness according to theory of policy analysis. Even though, the forest owners and enterprises benefit from tax reductions, evidence regarding its visibility as payment for ecosystem service is low. Forest land tax reductions are considered as other economic incentive for ecosystem services support with moderate potential effectiveness. Despite the instrument have low visibility of FES supported from both sides – sellers and beneficiaries, its potential effectiveness is high, due its automatic and stable implementation without relevant implementation gaps.</p>
</abstract>

Preferential land tax programs are used over 50 years and are mainly connected with nature protection and environmental goals. Nowadays, they are also considered as a way how to promote and support forest ecosystem services that arise from exempted forest land. In Slovak Republic national forest land tax reduction scheme exists for special purpose and protection forests, as well for other forests with special importance. The goal of the paper was to develop a multidimensional evaluation of this economic instrument for ecosystem service support in Slovakia. We evaluated how the forest land tax reduction fits into the payments for ecosystem services theory, which services are supported and what is the potential and implementation effectiveness according to theory of policy analysis. Even though, the forest owners and enterprises benefit from tax reductions, evidence regarding its visibility as payment for ecosystem service is low. Forest land tax reductions are considered as other economic incentive for ecosystem services support with moderate potential effectiveness. Despite the instrument have low visibility of FES supported from both sides – sellers and beneficiaries, its potential effectiveness is high, due its automatic and stable implementation without relevant implementation gaps.

Forest land tax reductions – an effective payment for forest ecosystem services in Slovakia?

Central European Forestry Journal

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Preferential land tax programs are used over 50 years and are mainly connected with nature protection and environmental goals. Nowadays, they are also...

Forest land tax reductions – an effective payment for forest ecosystem services in Slovakia?

Published Online: Nov 15, 2021

Page range: 167 - 176

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/forj-2021-0010

Keywords
forest functions, preferential tax programs, economic instruments, program goals, evaluation analysis

© 2021 Klára Báliková et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Forest land tax reductions – an effective payment for forest ecosystem services in Slovakia?

Published Online: Nov 15, 2021

Page range: 167 - 176

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/forj-2021-0010

Keywordsforest functions, preferential tax programs, economic instruments, program goals, evaluation analysis

© 2021 Klára Báliková et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Keywords
forest functions, preferential tax programs, economic instruments, program goals, evaluation analysis